


Mareel Mǫrueldr Merituli

by R_Gunns



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Horror Elements, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Monsters, Multi, Mystery, Past Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse, Vampires, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: For the prompt 'Vampire AU'There was a reason the coastal caves here fostered legends, and it wasn’t just their size or unexplored depths. During the winter months, come nightfall, the waters surrounding them would light up like a thousand fireflies had settled on the waves. The lights came from within the water though, and no firefly burned as bright or as blue as these did. Scientists said it was a certain kind of bacteria that lit up the waters like that, and though he was inclined to agree, seeing it in person never failed to send a shiver of doubt through him.He still remembered the stories his mother told him of lost souls that would wait for an eternity beneath the surface of the waves for someone to save them, only to snatch their body for their own.





	Mareel Mǫrueldr Merituli

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youriko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youriko/gifts).



> This is my gift to [Youriko](http://archiveofourown.org/users/youriko)/[hannadonnelys](http://hannadonnelys.tumblr.com) for the aftg winter fic exchange. You asked for vampire AU, and I wrote....this. It got away from me a little bit, but I've never written vampire-anything before and this was pretty fun. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> There's an accompanying playlist of music I listened to whilst writing [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/gunsintheground/playlist/0dRJgCxvIyzjPCsGFExgsr) and the tumblr post [here](http://rrgunns.tumblr.com/post/168291512182/my-gift-to-hannadonnelys-for-the-aftgexchange).
> 
> With regards to tags and warnings, abuse tags are for brief allusions to things that happened in the past, similar to that of canon, and minor character death isn't a spoiler to say that its unnamed OCs and a mention of Tilda. No main characters die. If anyone needs any other tags or clarifications feel free to shoot me a message.

 

_"The monster can be anyone and anywhere, and we only know it when it springs upon us or emerges from within us."_

-Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

 

i

Rekjak was the sort of place that encouraged legends; it fostered fairy tales and nurtured ghost stories with the gentle encouragement of a proud mother. The remoteness was a part of it, hidden in a great valley between mountains too dangerous to climb for most of the year, bordered by a great forest on one side and a barren coast line on the other, the people that lived there had not much else to occupy them than the stories they would tell each other.

The bitter, salt-whipped air ushered in stories of vicious fish-people who’d drown you for nothing more than the thrill of it, their flesh rotting and bloated – venturing into the sea-caves in search of the creatures was a long standing tradition for the teenagers of Rekjak, and stories of glowing eyes and warped figures would be told over dry bread and mulled cider in the weeks following.

Mothers told their children of the wolf-men that waited in the forest to gobble them up, and those that journeyed out of Rekjak for work whispered about the deathly screams that travelled on the wind, following them out of the valley. Then there were the Old Gods atop the mountains and the demons that clambered over the houses come night fall, the sprites that would steal your toes and the eyeless cats that lingered around the graveyard. There were many, many stories told in Rekjak, the tradition of it older than the village itself.

The irony of Rekjak lacking any legends of men with fangs that feasted on innocent villager’s blood though – well, that wasn’t lost on the vampires that lived there.

 

 

ii

_“Tell me again Jeremy, how do the fairy tales begin?”_

Jeremy couldn’t remember the first time he’d been asked that question, had only the haziest of memories of his mother now, but he couldn’t help but think of the stories she had told him as a child now. She’d sit beside him on his bed, the both of them holding warm mugs of milk close to their faces to smell the spices, and ask him how to begin her story. _How do I begin a ghost story Jeremy? How do I start a story about a pirate?_ And he would always answer dutifully: with _Once upon a time,_ and _On a cold stormy night_ , and with either a _Yo ho ho_ or a well-penned diary entry.

The tradition didn’t last very long. She’d gotten sick during a particularly bad winter when he was seven, and had barely lasted until spring. He remembered sitting with her though, telling her the stories and asking her how they began just like she had him, until she could no longer speak and he had to start the stories too – and then his mother had passed in her sleep, and just like that there were no stories to tell any more. Not for a long time, at least.

He was fortunate enough that his mother’s friends and neighbours helped him out in the years following her death. At first it was fetching eggs from the chickens and helping clean the pots and pans they would cook with in return for food and a fire to huddle in front of, but as the years passed he spent more time working on fixing roofs and hunting animals – though still paid in food and company.

He knew Alvarez since before he could remember, both growing up in the same little clutch of houses and often playing together at the edge of the forest, daring each other to step beyond the line of trees. Laila came later, with a flurry of unexpected activity at the edge of the horizon, and the panicked shouts of the fishermen and women when she and her uncle washed in on the broken pieces of a shipwreck. They were the only survivors of an exploratory ship from the South, attacked in the depths of night by some unseen force and lost to the darkness below – Laila was _sure_ it was the fish-people, no matter how often they visited the caves in search of them and came back disappointed in the years that followed. Laila’s uncle was never quite right after that, she told them, and what else could scare a weathered explorer but the awful creatures that drowned their ship with grins on their sunken faces?

Jeremy had always privately thought that seeing his entire family drown in a single night would be more than enough, and Laila herself wasn’t ‘quite right’ either, but the years (and Alvarez’ boots bruising his shins) had taught him not to voice that. Besides, he was the fool following them both back into the caves yet again in search of the beasts. What did it matter whether he believed in the creatures or not? There were a hundred other ways to die here – get caught as the tide came in too fast, slip on a stray rock, get ambushed by a pirate or worse, Miss Ailbury’s son, who was the approximate size of a Muskox and had been aptly christened _Gorilla_ by Laila in her own language. Jeremy wouldn’t be surprised if he took it upon himself to ambush them simply because he had nothing better to do.

“Jeremy?” Laila asked from a few feet ahead of him, the torch in her hand offering only the barest outline of the black rock that surrounded them. “We need to move quicker than this if we want to be out before high tide.”

“Sure,” Jeremy said, “Wouldn’t want to be caught here overnight.”

Which was, as it happened, quite possibly his worst act of foreshadowing to date.

-

“I thought you calculated the tides!” Alvarez said to him later, staring pointedly at the water seeping in through the cave mouth. Jeremy took a step back to avoid a particularly high rush of water and grimaced.

“I did. I did twice, and then I checked again, the water shouldn’t _be_ here right now.”

“The moon having abruptly changed her course to spite you Jeremy, in particular?” Alvarez asked, eyebrow somewhere near her hairline.

“Well–”

“Guys,” Laila said from behind him, drawing their attention away from the tide that would condemn them to a barely-survivable night huddled in a frozen sea-cave. He and Alvarez turned together to face Laila, and Jeremy bit back a gasp.

There was a reason the coastal caves here fostered legends, and it wasn’t just their size or unexplored depths. During the winter months, come nightfall, the waters surrounding them would light up like a thousand fireflies had settled on the waves. The lights came from _within_ the water though, and no firefly burned as bright or as blue as these did. Scientists said it was a certain kind of bacteria that lit up the waters like that, and though Jeremy was inclined to agree, seeing it in person never failed to send a shiver of doubt through him. He still remembered the stories his mother told him of lost souls that would wait for an eternity beneath the surface of the waves for someone to save them, only to snatch their body for their own.

Whatever it was, the waters unsettled him enough that he tried not to be on the shoreline come nightfall. Now though, in a cave that had never been seen after dark before – or maybe had, but no survivors had ever claimed so, he fought the instinctive urge to _run_ , as fast as he could away from this place. Because as it turned out, it wasn’t only the waters that housed those strange lights, but the caves too, and to a degree that was much harder to comprehend. Even as he watched, more and more lights began to blink on across every surface of the cave; the walls and ceilings becoming bright like the night sky, the floor shimmering with light like the waves outside, huge stalactites lit up like torches. It was as breathtakingly beautiful as it was terrifying. Where the lights in the water made him feel a little uneasy, this light – there was a wrongness about it that made his hair stand on end, itching at the animal part of his brain and whispering that _there are predators near_ , _get out get out get out._

“What are they?” Alvarez asked finally, her voice barely a whisper. She had moved closer to Laila and had her arms wrapped around herself as if to block out the cold, odd since Jeremy felt strangely warm in here, bathed in the eerie glow. Laila’s torch flickered a few times despite the lack of wind, and Jeremy was abruptly worried that it would go out, that without that last mark of the outside world they would be lost in these glowing caves forever. His thoughts rabbited around frantically for a moment without much sense to them, until the flame finally settled, and he took a shallow breath.

“Bacteria,” he said when it seemed Laila wouldn’t answer, “Glow worms too, I think.” But the words were hollow. Laila looked at him shrewdly.

“You don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth,” he protested, but even as he did he cast a glance around them, at the sea outside and the slow spread of water, and then into the depths of the cave, now lit up like a pathway. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the lights were eyes, a hundred thousand creatures watching them and waiting. “What else could they be?”

“The lights I saw that night,” Laila said, resolute, “Different to the ones in the water. The colour is different.”

Looking at the lights, at the glow that cast over their faces, he saw that she was right. These were a little brighter, a little greener, and something about them was warm where the water-lights was not. Laila was right, but what did it mean? These lights couldn’t have wrecked their ship – they were unsettling, but they were just _lights_.

“We – we should go further in,” Jeremy found himself saying, “The tide is coming in fast now.” Which was true, though not why he said it. The water was higher, but the ground sloped upward and at the furthermost wall they could probably be safely out of reach. Jeremy couldn’t shake the feeling that they needed to go further in though, to get rid of the feeling that he was being watched, or to find more lights, he wasn’t sure. He was hungry though, and they needed to go further.

Thankfully, Laila and Alvarez didn’t argue. They turned away from the outside world, hands clasped together, white knuckled, and followed him into the depths of the sea-cave.

It was quiet for a long time. The tunnel that led away from the opening was narrow, but lit up in the same way, and they avoided brushing against the lights as they went. He turned to check on the others every so often, sure that he would round a corner eventually and somehow lose them. But each time they were still there, solid and safe, and he would shake his head at his paranoia. After thirty or so minutes of walking, they arrived at the deepest point of the tunnel they’d ever reached before, marked by the small carved wolf Alvarez had placed down. As they passed she took it and placed it in her pocket, but said nothing. Jeremy was beginning to think that the tunnel would never end, and they would have to turn back or simply make camp where they stood, when the gentle curve to the right tightened and the floor began to slope down, almost like a curving staircase. The curve continued, steep and circling in a way that Jeremy felt sure couldn’t be natural – and then it didn’t.

The floor flattened back out, and they were in another tunnel. The ceiling was taller here, but the stalactites hung lower and in huge clusters that were hard not to brush against. Jeremy continued forward, barely cognisant of the smudges of light that had begun to drip and smear across his skin and clothes. This tunnel was shorter than the other, he could see an opening at the end – more light, more glowing, more eyes watching, all he knew was that he had to reach the end, had to find out what was in there, had to go further, had to eat. _Had to eat._ God, he was starving.

He was close to the end of the tunnel when there was a voice behind him.

“Jeremy!” Alvarez hissed, low and angry like she’d been calling him for a while now. “Jeremy I can hear something, stop–” She was right. Now that he had stopped, he could hear something over the thundering of his heart, over the steady dripping of liquid-light from the ceiling above, there it was –  voices. He started forward again, almost running.

“Jeremy, please, no – Laila, this isn’t what you think it is, come on, this isn’t what caused the shipwreck!” Jeremy could hear the steps behind him, didn’t have to turn to know that Laila was following him, and Alvarez sounded desperate, scared like she’d never been before, and Jeremy knew he should stop. He knew they should go back, should wait at the mouth of the tunnel for morning to come.

But he was so _hungry_.

The voices were louder now, speaking a language he didn’t understand. Something like his own but older, rasping and ancient. He could hear Laila’s harsh breathing behind him, the distant sound of Alvarez calling for them. And then the voices went silent, and two figures appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, half in shadow. Someone tall and looming, and then another, much shorter, stalking forward.

Jeremy felt his entire body freeze, the hazy rush that had settled over him disappearing as fast as it came on, and he was left with an awful realisation: his story may have begun with a _Once upon a time_ , but he understood now, and with startling clarity, that his was no fairy tale. This was not a happy ending.

As they came closer, he saw first the serious face of a boy with a black mark on his cheek, but was distracted quickly by the vicious anger on the other, who also looked like a boy at first, only a boy – except then there was a crack like bones breaking and his skin lit up like a thousand stars, like the lights in the cave and the liquid on Jeremy’s clothes but _more_ , captivating and indescribable.

Jeremy barely saw what happened next, only heard Laila’s anguished scream, the boy turning, and his teeth were growing and growing, thin as needles but long like a snakes, longer even, and then there was blood, and the tall boy with the black mark had teeth too, _but no lights_ , Jeremy thought.

And then there was no light at all.

**-**

Years passed. Rekjak’s sea-cave stories took on a sombre tone after the disappearance of three of the villagers, but word spread. The caves were haunted, were dangerous, were guarded by dark creatures and lost souls and hungry demons. A hundred miles south of Rekjak, Renee Walker heard word of the sea-caves and their glowing waters, and thought: _finally_.

 

 

iii

Here’s a story you might be familiar with: Centuries ago, there is a carpenter, and the carpenter discovered some wood that wept and laughed like a real boy.  From the wood he carves a Marionette, and they go on an adventure, and eventually the wooden boy gets his wish – to become a real boy, and to have a father.

But not all fathers are carpenters, and not all children are carved from wood. Sometimes they are moulded from clay, or freed from marble, some of them torn from leather or pulled from the roots of the blossom trees. There are children made from bones and moss, from sunlight and sugar. Some are made from the kiss at the corner of their mother’s lips. Sometimes there are no fathers at all.

And some are not so lucky. Nathaniel is a child carved from flesh, rendered from blood and bone and the gristle caught between a predator’s teeth. But the knives are not put away once the boy is fashioned into a living thing, and the carving does not stop. The carpenter in this story is not a loving man, his calluses not born from creation but destruction. But the more he carves away, the less real the boy becomes, until – like magic, he disappears into thin air.

Being real isn’t worth the price of a lifetime of pain, but Nathaniel never does discover how to be not-real again. So he becomes something different, sews himself new skin with a needle clenched between his teeth, swallowing the threads whole.

That is how they find him, years and miles and half a life later, a monster of his own creation. But not all happy endings belong to princesses, and not all monsters have to survive alone.

The stories are different, but they end the same way. “How happy I am,” says Pinocchio, “Now that I have become a real boy!”

Neil Josten is never quite so vocal about it, but his delight is in much the same.

 

 

iv

Sometimes children became monsters to save themselves from an unhappy ending. Sometimes monsters became children for the same reasons. Natalie Shields tore her own teeth from her gums and filed her claws down to the quick in search of some peace, but as it turned out, peace was an ongoing process.

Dan Wilds had found peace in herself long before she met Renee Walker, but like recognised like, and human or not, Dan knew a survivor when she saw one. Renee didn’t tell her everything – in fact, she told her barely anything at all about her past, but she understood enough that when she saw the glint in Renee’s eyes upon hearing the story of the glowing lights and the bodies that were never recovered, she didn’t question her request for a detour. It wasn’t like they had a set destination anyway, and both Allison and Matt had no qualms.

So plans were made, provisions were packed, and on the promise of a girl who used to be a monster, the small group headed North.

-

Dan wasn’t usually the type to lay money on intuition. It came in handy sometimes, but she always preferred logic and planning over a gut reaction. She had too many experiences with bad gut reactions, and it didn’t pay to react unthinkingly in their line of work. If you could call it that. They certainly weren’t paid for what they did. Still though, she trusted Renee, and that kept her from worrying too much on the long trek North.

By the time they had reached the mountain range that hid Rekjak from the outside world, the four of them were exhausted and starved from spending so many weeks on the road. Even though they had a steep climb ahead of them, it was a relief to see the end of the journey. They weren’t used to such long breaks between jobs, and Dan was eager to start planning, to hear Renee’s thoughts.

“Well, we can make camp here and wait ‘til morning, or we can attempt the climb before nightfall, and hope for an actual bed to sleep in tonight.”

Allison eyed her distastefully. “You want to wait?”

“Well, no.” Dan admitted, “But I wanted to give you guys the option.” Matt shrugged, obviously willing to do whatever she wanted, and Renee and Allison nodded their acquiescence. Good. Dan liked plans and strategy, but patience wasn’t a virtue she possessed. And you didn’t get into a job like their own without being at least a little reckless with your health.

Together they attached the metal spikes to their boots, covered their faces in protective masks, and made their way up the mountain. Saving their breath and forcing themselves to go as quickly as they could whilst still being cautious of slipping meant that they didn’t speak while they made at all until they had reached the top, just as the sun was beginning to dip over the horizon. Dan helped Matt over the edge as Renee did the same with Allison, neither of them adept at climbing. Everything was worth it though, when they had finally caught their breath and could take in Rekjak.

The village itself wasn’t much – a small set up of houses and other simple buildings that followed the natural curve of the mountains, but it was everything else about it that made Rekjak so breath-taking. The border of mountains on the right that sloped down to meet the great forest that stretched miles back beyond the range, becoming sparser as it reached the coastline; on the left the mountains were abruptly shorn off into cliffs, battered away by the endless waves, and although the sea-caves were barely visible even from their vantage point, the way the coastline was lit up like a galaxy – _that_ was what made them stop short.

“Wow,” Matt said from behind her.

Dan flicked her eyes over to him briefly, noting that he looked about as awed as she felt, and that Allison and Renee were holding hands as they took in the sight together too. As dusk settled over Rekjak, the light of fires and lanterns had begun to flicker on across the village, a warm companion to the eerie blue of the sea-lights. They had heard about them, yes, but in the same way the green waves of light that passed through the sky could only be believed, only really _understood_ once you had seen it, the stories of the ebb and flow of the waters here that ushered in blankets of starlight had to be seen to be believed. Dan had never seen anything like it.

“This is the place,” Renee said quietly, resting her head on Allison’s shoulder. “This is where we need to be.”

-

They were barely a skip and a jump away from exploring the sea-caves and their lights, but they all needed sleep, a good meal, and at least an hour of planning and discussion before Dan felt like they could face whatever job lay ahead of them. The mix of sea-lights and the village’s fires cast enough of a glow that they made it down the mountain relatively quickly. It was getting late by the time they reached the outskirts of the village, but it looked like there was some sort of party going on, thank the gods – they wouldn’t have to wake anyone or risk breaking into a barn to find shelter.

Still though, they didn’t know what to expect from these people. Obviously they travelled outside their village, for the stories to have spread, but a hidden place like this, and one that was cut off from the outside world for much of the year if the growing snowfall on the mountains was any indication – who knew how the people would feel about outsiders. They stuck close together as they weaved their way between the houses, following the sound of music and voices until they rounded the corner of one house and found what must have been ninety percent of the village’s residents gathered around a huge bonfire.

“Gods, I hope this isn’t going to be a cult thing,” Allison muttered, “Cults are the worst.”

“Do you remember—” Matt started, but Allison shushed him.

“I do and there’s a reason we don’t talk about it.”

“Yes, that wasn’t our finest moment,” Renee said, and Dan privately agreed. It had taken a good month of serious drinking to forget that job. She eyed the celebrations in front of them and relaxed at what she saw. No worshiping, or at least not the kind that would lead to bloodshed and sex-murders, no – this celebration seemed to be the appeasing kind. To ward off the snow for a little longer, to ask for the end of a drought, to beg an angry god for one more year without sacrifice. This celebration was about the lights, and the expression on Renee’s face said that she knew that too.

“What’s the plan?” she asked Renee, knowing the others would easily go along with what she wanted. Renee shrugged, smiled lightly.

“Make friends, find food and shelter for the night? Gather information if it’s offered, but I think explanations and planning can wait till morning, if that’s okay with you?”

“Okay,” Matt said, squaring his shoulders and looking back out at the celebrations, “Try to look wholesome.”

-

As it turned out the celebration _was_ an appeasement ceremony of sorts, but it was also a memorial. The trauma from losing the three teenagers was felt keenly, even years later, and it was clear that the residents here weren’t used to unexplained or unexpected deaths. As beautiful and otherworldly as Rekjak was, as often and as eager as they were to tell stories of gods and monsters and the supernatural, they clearly didn’t believe it like some communities did. The stories were a tradition as much as the religious holidays were, distanced from their original meanings. But the loss of the teenagers, and the strange glowing waters where they were last seen made for a compelling reason to find the gods again – just in case.

It never hurt to let the gods know you were willing to believe if they asked.

The people here hadn’t had visitors in a long time, clearly, but they weren’t averse to them, nor suspicious of their little group coming here because they had heard about the lights. Dan had insisted on telling the truth, at least partially, and it had worked in their favour. As much as the residents avoided venturing too close to the lights, they were still morbidly fascinated by them and their part in the disappearance of the three teenagers. Most of them were happy to talk about it, and even happier that they wanted to investigate. By the time the celebrations had started to wane, and the bonfire had settled from sacrificial levels to a more manageable size, they found themselves curled up together and sipping mugs of warm cider whilst a couple of women who introduced themselves as Betsy and Abby told them stories about the missing teenagers.

“They were good kids,” Abby said, her arm draped over Betsy’s shoulder to keep her close. “But I don’t think Laila ever really recovered from the shipwreck, as much as she liked to pretend otherwise. She spent so much time looking after her uncle she often forgot about herself. But then, she had Jeremy and Alvarez for that. I think, as awful as it is what happened, at least she had them with her.” She sniffed and Betsy nudged her a little, her own arm around Abby’s waist tightening for a moment.

“They are okay. Wherever they are, I like to think they are okay,” Betsy said to her quietly, her eyes faraway. Dan shared a look with Renee then, recognising the look in Betsy’s eyes – it was the same look they saw in the seers from their home town, and the witches they’d stayed with for a month last summer. It was knowing and not-knowing, vacant but all too aware. They would likely benefit from having a more in-depth conversation with her. Before Dan could suggest anything though, a gruff looking man came ambling over to them, muttering about broken roofs and escaped pigeons.

“David,” Abby said when he came within earshot. “Is it that late already?” He grunted something like agreement, too busy eyeing Dan’s little group curled up at the two women’s feet – children eager for a story. They hadn’t seen him at all during the celebrations, but he was clearly also Rekjakian, his colouring similar to that of Abby’s and Betsy’s, though not so dark as Dan or Matt.

Dan was curious why he hadn’t attended the celebrations, but then he said, “The roof is fixed. We’ll be kept dry for another few winters at least. What poor travellers have you stolen for an audience this time?”

“We haven’t trapped them,” Betsy said, slapping half-heartedly at his leg, “They came to see the lights. They don’t have anywhere to stay though, and we thought—”

“That you could house the strays. Fine, fine, but you’ll have to work for it,” he told them faux-sternly, to which they all nodded eagerly, standing and gathering their things. Working for shelter was something they were used to. “Come on then. You can take the Jeremy’s old room.”

And – _oh_. Neither of the women had mentioned that they were his mother whilst regaling their group with stories. Abby must have noticed her confusion though, because she shook her head fondly, a sad little smile on her face.

“He wasn’t ours if that’s what you’re wondering. But his mother died while he was young and his father was never around, so we took it upon ourselves to make sure he was okay. Actually, most of us in Rekjak considered him our adopted son in some way. Not that it wasn’t hard losing the girls too, but Jeremy was – he was ours. He was a child of Rekjak in more ways than one, and losing him hurt us all deeply.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. If I trust what Betsy tells me, we’ll see them again some day. I just hope that she’s right.”

-

They spent the next day helping out where they could, wrangling goats and fixing gates and fetching wood for the fires. In the afternoon, Dan and Renee stuck with Betsy to help her with her gardening whilst Matt and Allison went off with Abby and Wymack to help mend some of the crab traps that were broken. Dan was saved from trying to awkwardly ask Betsy about what she knew when a few hours into their work she set her gloves aside and sat back on her knees.

“You are here on a hunt, then?” She asked them both frankly. Dan was sure she looked guilty, but Renee only smiled calmly.

“Not a hunt. We just want to protect people.”

Betsy hummed, regarding them both seriously. She spent a long moment searching their faces for something, long enough that Dan was worried she’d seen something she didn’t like and they’d be sent away, but then abruptly her face cleared and she was smiling at them again.

“Good. You’ll need to head out before dusk if you want to be in the caves before the tide comes in for the night. You will have to wait till morning to come back, so make sure you have rations and flint.” She stood up, beginning to pack away her gloves and tools, so Dan followed suit.

“Thank you,” she said, unsure what else to say to this strange woman who had welcomed them in so freely, who knew far more than she was letting on, even to the people she was closest to. Renee nodded her thanks too, her face serious though not upset.

 “Okay, off with you. Your friends will be back soon, and I have food to make,” Betsy said, pushing them gently in the direction of the coast, where Dan could actually see Allison and Matt in the distance, following Abby and Wymack. “I trust that you will do what is right, when the time comes.”

(Dan never found out if Betsy was truly a seer, or if she was just awfully good at unintentional foreshadowing)

-

“Tell me again,” Matt said, “Why exactly we are here at night?” His arms were curled protectively around his waist, and he was so hunched over he was practically the same height as Dan.

“Because the lights can only be seen in the dark,” Dan said, though she didn’t take her eyes off the surrounding cave walls – it felt like they were in their own private galaxy, bathed in starlight. They had decided that they would simply stay in the opening cave tonight after shining a lantern down the hallway and seeing that it was far far longer than they had expected, the caves likely stretching back beneath the mountains. The sea-lights were beautiful to look at, but when the lights around the cave had begun to blink on in bursts across the walls and ceiling, it had rendered them all silent. It was like nothing she had ever seen before – and she had seen her fair share of unbelievable things over the years. They were never usually quite so beautiful though.

“Also, they were here at night when they went missing. The first and last to see all this,” Allison said, gesturing around them, “Until us at least. Maybe we’ll die of cold before anything sinister happens.” She was curled up under a mound of fur with Renee, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good.

“Summer babies, the both of you. You’d think you would’ve gotten used to the cold by now,” Dan said, though she was starting to feel the chill herself. Allison and Matt had originally come from warmer lands, but over the years had acclimated to the cold weather that usually gave Renee and Dan no trouble. This far north the weather was unforgiving though, and something about the chill inside the cave made her bones ache.

“Hmm,” Allison said, “But then Renee would stop acting as my personal heater. So warm.”

“I’d still need your cold feet to keep me cool in the summer,” Renee said lightly, and Allison huffed a laugh. But after a moment she sobered, letting her head fall to rest on Renee’s shoulder.

“Are you going to tell us why we are here, now?” she asked quietly. Renee hummed her acquiescence, closing her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, Dan couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the lights, but they seemed a darker, haunted.

“I haven’t told you everything about me. I’m not sure I ever will. But you all know I’m not human, I’d be a fool to think I could hide myself from you when we live so closely. I’m also a… lot older than I look,” she said. Dan noted that Allison didn’t seem surprised, and figured they’d had this conversation separately.

“I don’t know, I think you’re wrinkling a little here,” Allison told her, fingers brushing gently over the corners of Renee’s eyes. Of course she was lying, Renee looked younger than any of them, but it had the desired affect – Renee smiled at her, relaxing a little.

“Of the creatures we have hunted, none of them have been all that old. The most common vampire species we see have a lifespan not much longer than yours. But the Lophii – the stories I’ve heard about give them lifespans that well surpass that. They are vicious, powerful things, but up until now I had thought that they were all but extinct. You have to understand; for a long time, almost all deaths by the hand of vampires were because of the Lophii. Entire villages were going missing, but no one knew why because there were never survivors. The death count now, it’s nothing in comparison to what it was then.”

Dan shivered under her blankets, eyeing the tunnel opening that lead further into the caves. This felt an awful lot like a ghost story, and Dan was never a fan of ghost stories.

“Back then, with creatures like them – bloodshed and murder was the norm, and those who didn’t were the exception to the rule. We’re lucky that times changed. Somewhere along the way the Lophii began to tear themselves apart, destroy each other in their madness. And then the few left hid themselves away and we assumed had died in quiet. The last attack on record was here, in Rekjak – the blue sea-lights attract them. Three boys went missing, two twins and their cousin. The twin’s mother was attacked and died. It was unusual that so few people were killed, but there hasn’t been an attack by the Lophii since.”

Dan felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickling, the prey part of her brain warning her to watch her back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to say it out loud – to give voice to the conclusion Renee had obviously made. But before she could decide, Matt beat her to it.

“Until now,” he said, uncharacteristically solemn. Renee nodded.

“Until now. You are all free to go once dawn comes, if that’s what you want. But I need to follow this through to the end.”

If Renee had been expecting them to back out, she would be disappointed. Allison’s expression was determined, and Matt was sitting up straight and resolute despite the chill. Dan reached a hand over Allison to rest on Renee’s shoulder, her grip firm.

“We’ll follow you ‘til the end Renee. I’m not letting all our hard work go to waste just because some crappy species of vampire decided to become un-extinct.”  

“Okay,” Renee said, smiling gratefully, “Here’s what you have to know—”

She was never given the chance to finish though, because there was a flicker of movement at the opening of the tunnel, and they were no longer alone. A single solitary figure stood half in shadow, the lights catching them in odd places but never illuminating them enough to get a good picture of what they looked like.  

Then they stepped forward, and Dan had to blink, because far from the snarling monster she had imagined, instead there stood… a boy. He was a dot of a thing, as slim as Renee and as short as Dan, swamped in layers of furs. He couldn’t have been much younger than they were, but Dan had to fight down the urge to reach out, to protect him. Dan spared a moment of fondness for Matt when he stood abruptly, hand reaching out towards the boy. His bleeding heart had gotten them into trouble more than once, and he never learnt. He knew enough to not go any closer though, which Dan was thankful for. Things were rarely what they seemed on the surface, when it came to monsters.

“You’re trespassing,” the boy said finally, his brows furrowed seriously, the myriad of scars across his face warping and stretching as he spoke. One of the furs over his head slipped a little, some stray curls falling free, red as embers. His voice was sweet, and his bright blue eyes even sweeter, but something about him screamed _trap_.

“We’re sorry,” Dan said, inching closer to Matt in case he got any over-protective ideas in his head, “We didn’t know anyone lived here.” The boy’s eyes were on Matt’s still outstretched fingers, and Dan’s thoughts were filled with beautiful flowers that dissolved flesh, of entrancing whirlpools and the bright colours of poisonous insects. She thought about the sharp sting of the soft looking pufferfish, and the blue glow of the lamp plants that would draw in insects.

The blue glow of the sea-lights in the waters outside. The blue glow of the cave-lights that surrounded them.

 _Oh_ , Dan thought. _Very clever._

 

v

Here’s another story you may recognise: there was once a man who was barely more than a boy, and wracked with grief over the loss of his mother, he created an eight-foot tall monster that was made out of love, out of longing, but warped by grief and anger. But the man looked at his creation upon its birth, and saw not a wonderful discovery, nor a child to protect, but a warped and hideous monster: terrified of what he had done, he fled. And so the first thing the creature ever knew was rejection, and the second thing was much the same, and on and on until the creature knew only this – and sought vengeance on his father, his god, his maker.

Once his vengeance was achieved, and his creator dead, he found not peace, nor satisfaction; only guilt, for what he had done. Andrew Minyard had no such issue.

The men who made Andrew were the monsters in his story, much the same as the carpenter-carver-father in Neil’s. Although these men were just men, no sharp teeth or black blood to speak of, they were monsters all the same. Years later, when Andrew finally came face to face with a monster that wasn’t human, its glowing skin paper-thin with age, half its teeth snapped at the gum, he laughed and laughed with blood between his lips, and offered a promise of death.

Rabid and half-dead with starvation, the monster had not been careful of the nails that had dug into its skin as it fed, of the blood that drip dripped into the torn up bodies of its victims. The change happened quick, and before the creature could reach the village from which it’s victims had travelled, Andrew found retribution in blood.

Andrew, his brother and cousin left the village for the sea-caves, their bodies wracked with pain, the cells beneath their skin growing and changing and igniting in bursts of white-hot light. The last of the Lophii found their home in the cave that used to belong to their creator, travelling at night into the great forest to seek out animals for food, jumping over Rekjak’s rooftops and stealing away with things they thought wouldn’t be missed. They travelled sometimes, in search of answers, but found none.

They tried only a few times to reach out to humans, but found that the lights beneath their skin cast a spell of sorts over other living things, drawing them in trance-like, a moth to the flame. It didn’t matter if their lights were visible, if they intend to or not, but living with them was no longer possible. They mourned, they lived, they waited for another creature to find them, but in the end they settled into their life in the caves, at home with the cave-lights that functioned much the same way as their own lights did – a hypnotising glow used by the Orfelia larvae as protection. Theirs seemed to be embedded within their skeleton though, where the Orfelia’s were some sort of excretion. They never figured out why exactly the previous Lophii had picked the caves with glowing lights, but often wondered if it did so because it had found something in the world that resembled itself.

Time passed, and somewhere along the way, they began to pick up strays. Kevin came first, running from his own creators – a different kind of creature than they were, and seeking out shelter. He offered them explanations, all the knowledge he possessed on vampires – though there wasn’t much information on the Lophii, and promises were made. Kevin stayed. He didn’t work the same way they did, could freely exist around humans when he wasn’t hungry, so became useful in fetching supplies, leaving through the hidden tunnel openings at the back of the mountains, beyond Rekjak. Andrew lingered around in the darkness while he did, offering protection.

One such night they stumbled across a half-frozen lump of furs, a boy starved and dying but so clearly one of their own that Kevin insisted they bring him back to the caves. The lump turned out to be Neil, a mess of wounds at the hands of his father, and not at all the monster he believed himself to be. Neil was all sharp teeth and pointed ears and the somewhat unexpected ability to transform himself into a bat, but the bat in question had no thirst for blood like the Lophii or Moriyamas. No, Neil instead sought after sweet, fleshy fruits and the tart flowers he found at the forest’s edge, maybe the occasional bug when they wouldn’t notice and complain about it being disgusting. Neil often pointed out the hypocrisy of that considering their own diets, which was a fair point.

Neil was the only one of his species as far as they knew, the result of experimentation and torture at his father’s hands (and sponsored by Kevin’s own Moriyamas), but considered useless when he showed no greater strength or imperviousness to silver as intended. His lack of bloodthirst was considered something of an abomination too, and his ability to shapeshift wasn’t found until the pain had become too much and Neil had changed without realising, flying miles and miles North to escape, only to find himself wounded and frozen and unsure how to change back. He had fallen asleep under some furs he had found, and that was when Andrew and Kevin had found him.

-

They were happily free from any new strays for a long time after that, but were on high-alert because of Neil’s father. The three humans that came wandering into their den one night were unfortunate enough to catch them during that time, and Andrew didn’t spare much of a thought before attacking – hunter or Moriyama or butcher, they had expected many things, but curious humans were not one of them. Andrew didn’t apologise, but when realising their mistake, he and Kevin had given their own blood in order to turn them. A brand new Lophii, and a red-cheeked Moriyama added to their mismatched pack, the full set was complete when, after a long week of explanations and apologies (on behalf of Andrew) and discussions, Alvarez had asked Neil to bite her, not wanting to leave her friends behind. Neil had frowned and shrugged and told her he wasn’t sure it would work, and then grimaced in disgust at the idea of having to _bite_ her, so instead sliced their palms and held hands like some kind of pact. It had worked, surprisingly, and so they had to deal with _two_ winged annoyances fluttering around their heads.

But that was it, Andrew was _done_ with the strays, no more adopted children, no matter how spacious the caves may be or how paternal Nicky was feeling. But then Neil had disappeared to stretch his wings out one night, only to come back with _four more_.

“No.”

“Listen—” Neil started.

“No, this is not a half-way house for vampires, I am not biting any more humans.”

“No biting necessary!” Neil said quickly, then started making introductions with the four wide-eyed humans. Or, three humans, Andrew noted, because one of them smelt an awful lot like Kevin. That was vaguely intriguing.

As it turned out their new friends were _hunters_ , and Neil still had a death-wish, but once they explained the ‘attack’ on the three, and how none of them touched humans, their talks had moved to bites and species and offerings and Neil had asked, “Do you want to be like me?”

The two that were called Dan and Matt had been adamant that they didn’t want it, but the blonde one that stuck close to the not-Moriyama girl with the silver fake teeth and the blunted claws – she considered Neil’s offer for significantly longer.

“I’ll think about it,” she said in the end, which Andrew figured meant that she needed to discuss it with her not-Moriyama girlfriend before she made any decisions.

“So why aren’t they, y’know, enthralled by us? Or by the glow-worms for that matter?” Jeremy asked a little while later. Neil was curled up by Andrew’s side, dozing, apparently happy foisting off his new friend’s questions on everyone else, job completed after bringing them in. They would be having words about being responsible for your own pets in the morning.

“Ah, I gave them protection,” Renee told Jeremy, gesturing at the necklaces they all had around their necks, “A little of my blood, some herbs and other things offer enough of a protection against the pheromones that they don’t feel it.”

“Wow, you gotta teach me that,” Jeremy said, then smothered a yawn against Kevin’s leg where he was leaning on him. “Oof, I know some of you are nocturnal, but I most definitely am not, so I’m off to bed. Nice to meet you all!”

Jeremy tugged Kevin up off the floor and away to their room, and after that everyone began drifting away to their respective parts of the caves. As Andrew tugged a sleepy Neil towards their own room, he heard Matt talking to Nicky behind them, explaining how they had made the cave more habitable and his plans for the future. Andrew shook his head. They needed to find Nicky his own pet project.

“Come on fruit-bat,” Andrew said, turning his attention to Neil. “You must be exhausted after your exciting day of recruiting.”

-

Not all monsters are made the same. Not every ghost story starts with death and rarely do the fairy tales have a happy ending.

In Frankenstein’s story, his monster had said _you hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself._ Wracked with guilt, the monster had given his body to the waves, and was lost to darkness. Andrew though, free of guilt, found a happy ending for himself in the midst of a story that had long been a horror.

 

 

vi

Rekjak was the sort of place that encouraged legends; it fostered fairy tales and nurtured ghost stories with the gentle encouragement of a proud mother. The remoteness was a part of it, hidden in a great valley between mountains too dangerous to climb for most of the year, bordered by a great forest on one side and a barren coast line on the other, the people that lived there had not much else to occupy them than the stories they would tell each other.

Behind the houses, at the edge of the treeline, a woman was on her knees, gardening. Prying up stray weeds and carefully pruning wandering branches, collecting ripe fruits and handfuls of herbs; their smell would cling to her fingers for the rest of the day. As dusk began to fall, she packed away her tools and lifted her basket to take back home, gathering with her the stray red strings of fate as she followed the smell of smoke and food back to her home.

She paused at the gate that bordered her home though, watching as a girl with blunted claws came wandering out of the darkness.

“I’m sorry it took so long. Here,” the girl said, offering her a handful of pendants, their smell not all that different to what lingered on her fingers. “Abby and David have packed food and are ready to go when you are, I believe. You’ve all waited long enough.”

And so the three of them gathered their things, hung the pendants round their necks, and followed the girl towards the sea-caves and their glowing lights.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's that! I hope you enjoyed it, even if it was a bit weird. Some of the stories/books I referenced were: Treasure Island, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, and Dracula. I imagine that the country this takes place in is like a cross between Iceland and Norway.
> 
> I can't find the post right now but the basic idea for this fic came from that tumblr post talking about different species of vampires, and I liked the idea so much, when I saw the vampire AU prompt I just had to write it! The Moriyama vamps are the old-school Dracula kind I imagine, and the Lophii (from the Latin word for angler fish) generally look human until they are hunting, where they grow long teeth and light up similar to angler fish. 
> 
> I think that's everything. Happy holidays!
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://rrgunns.tumblr.com).


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